Maxwell Smart, Alias Agent 86. Has Slight, Sharp Features. Speaks In Clipped, Piercing Tones. May Be Dangerous.
TV Today - January 1969 - Peggy Hudson, TV Editor, Scholastic Magazines
He's dangerous, all right. He's TV's super-blooper secret agent.
KAOS agents have been after him for years. But he's slippery as a banana peel and hasn't been tripped up yet -- thanks mostly to co-spy, Agent 99.
Smart isn't exactly dumb. He's the original bumbler -- blandly arrogant, naturally incompetent. When the phone rings, he answers his shoe, and he's off on assignment -- if he can remember where he's going.
Despite his ineptness, he's probably the most widely quoted character on TV. His "Sorry about that ,Chief" is frequently more infuriating than no apology at all. And "Would you believe?" has become a transparent cover-up for outrageous lies, such as this one of Smart's:
"I love music. I once listened to three weeks of Beethoven."
"I don't believe it."
"Would you believe two weeks of Brahms?"
"No."
"A day of Looney Tunes?"
Smart is played by 41-year-old Don Adams. Would you believe Donald James Yarmy? Actually, it's both.
One day a young comedian named Yarmy tried to audition for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts without an appointment.
"They asked my name and I said, 'Don Adams.' A week later I was on the show and won. From then on I worked as Don Adams," Yarmy-Adams-Smart recently recalled.
TV's most popular secret agent got into TV after appearing in a number of big movies -- big movie theatres, that is. As a schoolboy, he found movies more stimulating than classrooms. "I was the greatest truant in the history of the New York City schools," he said. "I spent practically my entire youth going to movies and dodging the truant officer. But they always knew where to find me. In a way, I was going to school there. I was interested and excited by the make-believe world. Seeing Ronald Coleman was more adventuresome than living on 86th Street in New York City in the 1930's."
To get in the Marines in World War II, Adams had to up his age, and his weight as well. Increasing his age from 16 was relatively easy (he lied). But it took a great deal of eating to gain 32 pounds to top the required mark of 150.
While serving on Guadalcanal he not only got shot but, even worse, sick. He contracted black water fever, a disease which is often fatal. Recovering consciousness long enough to discover a corpsman sitting deathwatch at his bedside, Adams said grimly: "I'm not going anywhere."
Back in civilian life Adams attended an art institution, became a commercial artist, wrote comedy material, and tried to establish a career as a nightclub comedian. It was during this phase that he decided to try to break into Godfrey's program.
When we visited Adams at his luxurious home in Beverly Hills' posh Truesdale Estates, we found him reading Winston Churchill -- and ready to go golfing.
"I never believed in formal education, but I've tried to educate myself," he said. "For a couple of years I devoured about every book I could get my hands on. I was really giving myself a 'mental stomach ache'. Finally I realized that it's not how much you read, but how well you reason things out for yourself that counts."
It was impossible to ignore in Adams a thing we've noted about many comedians when they're off stage: They seem to be extremely serious people. It's as though they get enough yaks just making audiences laugh while they're doing their job. During their leisure moments, they want to relax.
Get Smart is currently in its fourth season on NBC. "I'm not really getting tired of it," Adams said. "Again it's a kind of escape into things I wouldn't normally be doing. It's exciting to find different way to do comedy."
Adams analyzes Smart with a logic seldom found on his program. "Maxwell," Adams said, "is serious, dedicated, awkward, forgetful, pompous to a certain degree, sentimental."
Is that how Adams sees himself?
"Yes," he admitted.
He indicated he would like to be a director even more than an actor. "I directed several shows last year and the year before," he said. "Writers put down words, but it's the director who takes those words and the actors and puts them together. Actors in most cases are just puppets."
Near the end of our interview, a golfing friend of Adams' dropped by to take him for a round -- a ritual which, Adams admitted, he'd go through more often if her weren't so busy with the series. This fall Smart will marry the series' Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon -- an event which just might lead to 99's becoming a "golfing widow."
Sorry about that, Chief.
AI
